Venezuelans ask for refugee status

Citing difficulties in Venezuela in securing official documents, spokespersons for the Venezuelan community in the Dominican Republic are requesting that the Dominican government approve exceptions to the regular immigration procedures so the new immigrants can legalize their status in the country. The Dominican government has been lenient with Haitians that have also had difficulties in obtaining required documents from their government.

The Venezuelan community urges that the Dominican government carefully evaluate the extraordinary cases faced by a number of Venezuelans in the country. The Venezuelans argue that given the strife and social and political uncertainty in their home country, the Dominican government should grant them refugee status under the Geneva Refugee Convention. The claimants point out that they had to leave their country en masse, due to 700% inflation, the health crisis with 8 out of 10 medicines not being available, a food crisis, and minimum wages that barely cover 20% of a family monthly food bills.

The Venezuelans explain that the crisis in their country has led to long delays in receiving requested official documents such as academic certifications, legal records, birth certificates, among others.

Spokesmen for the Venezuelan community, Rainiero Cassoni and Juan Carlos González, in a press conference, admitted that the exact number of Venezuelans living in the country is not known. They say the World Bank establishes that 19,000 Venezuelans have chosen the Dominican Republic as refuge from the political, economic and social crisis in Venezuela.

According to the Migration Agency (DGM) some 35,006 Venezuelans have arrived to the country in the first four months of the year, with on average 8,000 Venezuelan arrivals in the past months. Most Venezuelans have found work in the local informal labor market due to not being able to regularize their legal status.